Archive for the 'So You Think You Can Dance' Tag Under 'The Watcher' Category

"So You Think You Can Dance" will be back for a ninth season this summer - or at least half of it will. According to what show-runner Nigel Lythgoetold his Twitter followers, Fox is limiting the series to one night a week, meaning the elimination episodes are gone.

Whether you think this is good or bad news depends, of course, on how big of a "SYTYCD" fan you are. The Watcher is happy about anything that will reduce the screen time for Nigel and his crew of self-indulgent, over-emotional judges.

Lythgoe conceded that this means a significant format change for the show, but says he is grateful for the renewal. "I'm certainly not mad at FOX they have supported "SYTYCD" for9 seasons," he tweeted. "With the help of [Fox reality chief] Mike Darnell I think we have some great new ideas."

Many similar talent competitions have managed with one show per week - notably "The Voice" and "America's Best Dance Crew" - so the format change are not likely to be quite as "significant" as Nigel warns.

Except for "America's Got Talent" - which, I think, doesn't finish until the world ends in 2012 - many of the summer reality competitions are done or winding down.

"So You Think You Can Dance" crowned Lauren Froderman as its champion Thursday night. Kent Boyd finishes second, and Robert Roldan third. Kent was certainly the early favorite this season, but Lauren, and 18-year-old from Phoenix, never danced a bad routine.

"Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" selected it first - and possibly last - winner Wednesday in Abdi Farah. The series was well made, but concept was fundamentally flawed. Art isn't made to order the way clothes or food are. The finale ended with a call for prospective contestants, but the show has not be renewed yet. Ratings were lukewarm.

The Watcher is venturing off for a few days to watch television in Denmark. I'll be absent from the blog until Tuesday, July 13 - although I will try to drop in Thursday to throw in two cents more on the Emmy nominations.

"America's Got Talent" feels like it has been on forever already, but it's just now getting to the Las Vegas round. Tuesday and Wednesday, the judges will begin paring down to the 48 finalists who will perform on the live shows.

"Law & Order: Criminal Intent"on Tuesday wraps up its first season without either Goren or Eames on board. Jeff Goldblum and Saffron Burrows are doing all right, but it seems as though the writing has declined this season.

"So You Think You Can Dance" offers two hours of auditions from Chicago and Los Angeles tonight on Fox, but savvy viewers can skip ahead to the finals, leaving tonight free for reruns of "Modern Family" and the rest of ABC's comedy lineup.

The fan site SYTYCDism claims to have the list of the Top 10 - which is not exactly a Top 10.

That will make more sense if you read on to the rest of this post. Of course, fans who don't want to be spoiled should steer clear.

Payne, a 20-year-old who grew up in Placentia, made the Top 10 in the fourth season of "SYTYCD" and last year appeared in the role of Alice in the remake of "Fame."

This week word comes that Payne is one of four new members of the Pussycat Dolls, the singing and dancing troupe formed by choreographer Robin Antin that features singer Nicole Scherzinger, winner on Tuesday of "Dancing With The Stars."

Scherzinger is the only remaining member of the original Pussycat Dolls, best known for songs such as"Don't Cha" and "When I Grow Up." In addition to Payne, new Dolls include Vanessa Curry, a former Laker Girl; Rino Nakasone-Razalan, a Harajuku Girl dancer for Gwen Stefani and later a member of the Beat Freaks who competed on "America's Best Dance Crew"; and Jamie Lee Ruiz, a member of Girlicious, another Antin-created group.

In sixth place, Ryan Di Lello, with his wife Ashleigh in fifth. Then Scott in fourth and McCormick in third, leaving just Ferguson, the untrained krunker from Boston against Karr, the contemporary dancer from Florida.

"So You Think You Can Dance" (8 p.m. Fox) - Season six comes to a close tonight, as the wholly inaccurate title of "America's Favorite Dancer" is handed to Kathryn, Ellenore, Ashleigh, Jakob, Ryan or Russell. Putting "SYTYCD" on the fall schedule may have worked for Fox, but it has sapped much of the specialness from the series, as it stands out less than it did in the slow summer months. I confess the Watcher has tuned in only sporadically this season, as other shows have had more appeal. Any opportunity to avoid hearing Mary Murphy scream or watching Nigel Lythgoe pat himself on the back, I'm going to take. As a result, I don't have a strong opinion about who will win. Russell or Jakob, I guess.

"Top Chef: Las Vegas" (10 p.m. Bravo) - Tonight, Bravo reunites the competitors from the season that concluded last week for a tell-all extravaganza. I don't know that we expect any blowups: The cooking this time around probably was the strongest of any season, but the conflict was mild. Still, something interesting usually emerges. Bravo also will reveal the winner of the fan-favorite voting.

December 4th, 2009, 6:22 pm by PETER LARSEN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

We caught up with Nathan Trasoras the day after he got the boot on "So You Think You Can Dance" and found the recent graduate of the Orange County High School Of The Arts in surprisingly good spirits.

Then again, the 18-year-old last long enough in the competition to earn a spot on the national tour that follows the show, and certainly the exposure he got in his time on the Fox series can only help him with his dream of performing. And you can catch him dancing on TV again already this afternoon, when he and Noelle Marsh, who also left the show last week, dance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" at 4 p.m. on KNBC-TV/4

You can read the full interview here, but we also got to thinking about all the O.C.-connected dancers to appear on this series. And then we got to thinking, who of them is the best, and well, why not ask the readers to cast their votes for their favorite?

But nobody enters a competition hoping to finish 10th, and so this week, Nathan was back on the dance floor hoping to impress first the judges, and then the viewers whose votes will make or break the competition from here on out.

Partnered with Kathryn McCormick, Nathan performed a Broadway routine and a rumba on Tuesday. Was he good enough -- or popular enough -- with the voters? Read on for the results....

On Wednesday, 14 dancers stood before the judges on "So You Think You Can Dance,"hoping that their fans had called enough times the night before to save them from the bottom three, and the inevitable expulsion of a male and a female dancer from their ranks.

O.C. favorite Nathan Trasoras, who graduated from the Orange County High School of the Arts this year, and his partner Mollee Gray were frontrunners the first two weeks of the semi-finals, before failing to impress the judges much at all last week.

Did Nathan survive? Who went home? Well, read on to find out the results, we'll not spoil it just yet. And click through the slide show to see each of the couples in action this week.